Mamma Mia!
by SongbirdNoodles
Summary: Love is complex, and yet simple. The songs of Abba taught us that much so here -inspired by a late-night screening of Mamma Mia- are fifteen drabbles. One for every song on the Mamma Mia Soundtrack, one for every canon ship on The West Wing.
1. Part One

Mamma Mia!

_Sooo… I was going to write this super-thoughtful CJ/Danny fic, but then my grandmother made me drink red wine and watch Mamma Mia! with her, and this happened instead. It's basically one drabble for every song from Mamma Mia corresponding with one West Wing 'ship. First up: Josh/Amy, Zoey/Charlie, Josh/Donna, Sam/Mallory_

i. Honey, Honey

Amy Gardiner had figured that she knew all that there was to know about Josh Lyman. Workaholic, power-dating, the kind of guy that only masochistic women really went for. A typical Washingtonian, really.

She was soon forced to admit she'd underestimated him. Something about that smile and those lips, and, god, the good use to which he put both drove her unashamedly crazy. And something else, too: the rapidity from which he went from typical Washington to the guy seventh grade who stuck gum in your hair because it was the only way he knew to show you he kind of liked you. She knew that there was something in the way her breath sometimes caught when he grinned her that was definitely no good, something in the way she was looking forward to seeing him during the day that would need to be reconsidered, but for now, she was happy to not dwell on it. For now, she was happy to focus on the more immediate side-effects of their relationship.

He'd come over late on most nights, earlier on some, bearing chinese food or a bottle of wine, but he'd look at her and the need for both would be entirely eradicated. Sooner rather than later he'd be pressing her against her fridge, sneaking a hand down her pajama pants and running a thumb over the boy shorts she now wears just so he can tease her about it at an agonizingly slow pace.

Half the time, they'd never even make it to the bedroom, or when they do, it's for round two, and sometimes three. Her kitchen table has seen so much in the past few weeks that it would be blushing if a solid oakwood table named Björkudden could; Josh lifting her up with a breathed, "God, you're sexy," before pulling up her skirt and showering her inner thighs with kisses; and a few times, his eyes widening in pleasurable shock as she's the one forcing him against the fridge, pulling down his boxers and moving to kneel on her kitchen tiles.

It's never about domination with him, or anything else that's messy and political and makes people think that you can either be a feminist or like sex, it's just the two of them, liking each other's bodies and maybe just liking each other's company, because it's not _just_ about sex- they watch Jon Steward together and after two weeks, he starts staying the night in the true sense of the word and they fall asleep in a tangle of legs and sheets and misplaced kisses, and she'll wake him up with a ravenous kiss, and when they both leave to work, it'll be with a self-satisfied smile on their faces.

ii. Money, Money, Money

"I got it," Zoey'll say, frowning and rummaging through her bag for her wallet. "No, Charlie, really."

"I can pay it," he'll say, mutinously, his own wallet already at hand, because he does _have_ enough money to take his girlfriend out to dinner, even if it means no lunch for the rest of the week.

"I know you can," she'll smile, "but I'd rather you'd buy Deanna some new shoes and let me spoil you."

He'll sigh and hem and haw and be sullen for the rest of the night, because he can't say no to her even on this, though god knows he'd like to sometimes.

Years later, when he thinks about proposing because she's the only one that's ever mattered and probably always will be, he thinks that he shouldn't, yet- he can't provide for her, not really, can't give her the life that he wants to give her, even though he knows she's never cared about that. He used to tease he about it, how she'd look into her wallet with an expression that clearly read, _Huh, I thought there was another twenty in here, but I guess not. _

"For an economist's daughter, you're pretty bad with numbers," he'll say, grinning, and she'll swat him playfully and he'll d try to pretend he's not burning with envy inside at how good it must feel to be okay with having twenty bucks less than you thought you did.

And she'll kiss him, and whisper "thanks for letting me buy you dinner," and that'll be that, for now.

iii. mamma mia

She's here, she's really here, his Donna, with a strange new haircut that doesn't really suit her and bags under her eyes and a serious, all-too-grown-up look on her face that tells him that when she says she's grown, what she means is she's lost her innocence, and that makes him feel sick.

She's right in front of him, but he still misses her. Her laugh and questions and the part of him that she brought out, and for a wild, wonderful moment, he entertains the notions of how great it would be to have her back, how less wrong all of this would feel, but then she accuses him of not being okay with her being in power, and that's such an unfair to thing to say, and he stares at her and all he sees is an unfamiliar young woman in an all-too low cut top and an ill-fitting beige suit, and he blurts out exactly what's going through his mind.

"And if you think I don't miss you every day...," Josh says, and suddenly, her world stops to turn, and the fragile balance she's built in the past few months, somewhere between "He never really cared about me" and "I never cared about him" comes spectacularly crashing down around her, and her heart, her shut-off, shut-up heart, wakes from sleep and starts beating again hungrily.

She looks at him and she swers he might be crying, and she can't do this, she can't possibly have been the one to reduce one Josh Lyman, a giant of American politics, to this. Scrambling with fear, missing her, and so beside himself, apparently, that he's past caring if she knows it. All of it's a novelty, and all of it is not at all a surprise: there's a part of her that knew, always knew, that he had this inside him, this capability to love without reason, this vulnerablity when stricken where it really hurts. To know that she was the one who dealt the blow just makes it worse.

She runs, because it's all she can do, and can feel his eyes following her all the way into the lobby of the building, and there she leans her head against the cool marble and tries to focus on breathing and not crying.

It doesn't go so well.

All she can focus on is Josh, Josh, missing her and needing her, shadows under his eyes, and the fact that she's missed him every day as well, that every day of this crusade of hers to hurt him as much as possible has really been all about hurting herself. Because of course, she's missed him. How could she not have? He's Josh, and he's _missed her every day. _

After the shock comes the realization, wry, bitter, that she's just as much in love with him as she always was, that she's just as much his as she always was and, no matter how brazenly she puts on make-up and wears expensive suits, most likely always will be. She's past coming scurrying when he bellows her name, but when it matters, she'll be there. She can't help herself.

These, after all, are the ties that bind.

iv. dancing queen

They're on their fifth 'not-date', and she's invited him to her place, which, apart from other enticing possibilities, means he gets to check out her music library while she's pretending she can cook and talking non-stop. She still insists that the times they've spent together after the Chinese Opera disaster are absolutely _not_ dates, but when he kissed her goodnight last Friday, she had no visible objections, so he thinks they're on a pretty good track so far.

The talking he's going to have to get used to, because he really likes her, despite her being the boss's daughter and so totally off-limits -not to mention a little intimidating- that it's almost hilarious again.

Another thing he's going to have to get used to is her taste in music, apparently. It takes him half a monologue on how public school funding _should_ work to finally locate something halfway decent in all the girly music, and when the disc tray finally slides open, it reveals another of Mallory O'Brien's many guilty pleasures: a well-worn golden disc. Smirking to himself, he hits the play button and ups the volume quite a bit.

"Oh no!" Mallory snaps, scandalized, holding an onion as she glares at him. "You do not get to mock my taste in music, not after the Time Life Sounds Of The Seventies in your car."

"This is way worse than time life," Sam mutters, approaching her with a grin. "Do you operate a gay disco in your free time or something?" He bypasses the kitchen counter teaming with badly-chopped vegetables and grins at her. "Put down that knife, I beg of you."

"Shut up," she grins at him, but complies, and as terribly cheesy, achingly familiar blares out of her stereo, s he gracefully takes in his arms and twirls her around in her kitchen. It's cheesy and straight out of a trashy romance novel, but Mallory feels surprisingly right in his arms, and Sam finds this comforting rather than terrifying, and all of this is a really good thing.

"You can dance," she says, amazed, as he effortlessly waltzes her through her kitchen, that looks like a small tornado just hit it. "You really can dance."

"Yeah," he shrugs, twirling her around again.

"You never cease to amaze me," she mutters, beaming. "You're such a klutz! And you can dance!"

"And you really can't cook," he mutters, which earns him a smack on the head, and then he pulls her a little closer and presses a kiss on her lips and she smiles and sighs and they stand there, surrounded by a food processor she's managed to break, and the stereo blaring "ooooh see that girl", but Sam notices very little of either.

v. our last summer

There were times when he he looked at his wife, and all he could see was what she looked like when he met her. She was eighteen, with a mane of red hair falling in waves over her shoulders, and had a tendency to wear turquoise linen skirts and heavy, wooden jewelry. He looks at her, in her expensive suit, a stranger in his kitchen, because all he wants to see is that idealistic girl with freckles all over her pale shoulders who argued and laughed and moaned into his mouth as they made clumsy attempts of love on her creaking bed in Columbia dorm.

It didn't last in college, but when they ran into each other again in Paris of all places -she was taking a semester abroad, him, working at the Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation- a few years later, they both decided to make it last, because they'd seen enough of the world to know that this was as good as it was going to get.

He remembers how the snow fell on her hair on a lonely bridge, how he'd run to the bakery across the street of his tiny apartment where she moved in soon for croissants every morning, how she'd laugh at him and spew crumbs all over his sheets, and now the pastry would stick to her back when he pressed her back into the sheets, hands roaming over her body as the winter sun crept into their window.

He clings to memory now, because he hates what they've become. Distorted by time and space, they're divorced now, but far from separated.

Sometimes, when they sit in his apartment late at night, when either is in need for company and alcohol and a body intensely familiar but not their own, he wants to ask her if she remembers what it was like. If she still speaks her garbled version of French, still owns that picture she bought from a street artist a few days before they went back. If she remembers what it was like, deciding to make it last, make it stick. Sometimes he wants to ask her if she thinks they should have tried harder; even harder.

Most nights, though, he's just happy she's here. Happy she's here, and knowing she can lean rest her eyes between his shoulder and his neck where it fits so perfectly, and close her eyes for a second, if her day has been eating at her. And he'll drop a chaste kiss on her forehead, and that'll be that; unless they're both in need of more, and then it'll be just as it ever was, muscle memory taking over, two people exploring a body they know as well as their own, whispering names they've been saying and groaning and yelling for the past twenty years, two people moving in an effortless tandem so much more satisfying then those first attempts at love-making all those years ago, and yet so much less so.


	2. Part Two

Mamma Mia!

_i. lay your love on me_

"It's lucky I'm not a jealous man," Jed remarks, smirking down at her as she crawls into bed in checkered pajamas, a smudge of the night's mascara still on her cheekbone. Abbey wraps the covers around her body and savors the feeling of the two of them, sniping at each other about British royalty attempting to grasping her breasts, with the air, finally, cleared between them.

"You _are_ a jealous man," she reminds him, grinning.

"That's right," Jed smirks in fake astonishment, pulling off his necktie, "I am. Although even if I wasn't, I would seriously be objecting to-"

"Oh, just say it already!" She rolls her eyes affectionately, fingers searching for her reading glasses on the clutter of her nightstand. "You just don't like British royalty appreciating my-"

"Damn straight I don't," Jed grumbles, unbuttoning his shirt. "That's why I got married, so no else gets to appreciate those."

Abbey laughs, and it's such a wonderful feeling, to be laughing with her husband again. "What are you going to, bomb his castle? You were the one who invited-"

"He's the British Ambassador! We couldn't not invite him, but I thought we could hide the women!" Jed exclaims. "And we needed him for a thing. Have you seen my pajamas?"

"What am I, your mother?"

"I'd never think that. I've tasted your cooking and it's nothing like-"

"You keep that up and I'm giving Lord John a call," Abbey chives, though mildly.

"You wouldn't. You're too classy for him."

"I'm not that classy."

"I'll say."

"Shut up, Jethro."

"I've told you not to call-" He breaks off, shaking his head in amusement. She watches in silence as he goes off in search of his pajamas and her fingers, still absent-mindedly scanning the nightstand for her glasses, knock over a small silver frame. She picks it up, and finds herself staring at her twenty one year-old self, in a lacy, white-dress and a radiant smile, shyly holding hands with one Josiah Bartlet. God, they were young. Both of them. And if she'd known, then, where life at his side would lead her, into the White House and a courtroom… Abbey shrugs, knowing the answer. She can't kid herself, now. Now that anger and self-righteousness have been extinguished, she's forced to admit herself, once again, that she's bound to this man, truly until death do them part.

She hears the porch door creak open. "Don't smoke!" She yells out of habit.

"You know, the fact that you've revoked your medical license sort of means you don't get to treat me like one of your patients anymore," he calls back.

"I'm still your wife, aren't I?" She calls back. "Haven't revoked that. Yet."

Jed sticks his head back into their bedroom. "Don't joke about that," he says, seriously.

Abbey smiles, ruefully. "Come to bed, jackass."

_ii. super trouper_

"So," she asks him, a few days after Christmas, sprawled between his sheets and trying to fish her bra out from under his bed single-handedly, "you back for good, mister?"

Danny walks his fingers over her bare back slowly, agonizingly, one hand caressing her lower back. "CJ…"

She gives a low, soft shudder as his fingertips are replaced by his lips, moving towards her shoulder blades. "I was asking…"

"Just relax, okay?" He mutters into her collarbone, and then, thoroughly out of nowhere, flips her around to face him. They both burst into laughter at the look on the other's face, and she pulls herself into a half-sitting position to kiss him. "I'm relaxing," she mutters, one hand raking through his hair. "This is very relaxing."

"Good," Danny hums, fingers caressing her shoulders, and then he drops his head to her chest. The sudden tickle of beard against skin makes her giggle, but it's quickly replaced by a moan as his tongue traces her nipples, kissing them to hard points. CJ shudders, and lifts up his face to kiss him, hungrily, and he lets her, slipping a finger between her thighs, lightly teasing as she grows hot and wet under his touch, until either of them can stand it, and she mutters something than sounds suspiciously like, "God, Danny, just-" and that's all the invitation he'll ever need. They groan and gasp at the contact as he slides inside her, a messy, sweaty tangle of bodies, sheets and sounds as they rock each other over the edge, and cry out together in the gray light of a December morning.

"You know," she mumbles, later, still draped lazily around him, and addressing the ceiling, "I was serious before."

"Serious about what?" Danny mutters, his hands raking through her hair, soft kisses raining down on her temple, and she wishes they could just stay like this for ever, naked and undefined, without the world intruding.

"_Are_ you back for good?"

Danny heaves a sigh, arranges his body to look at her, and she turns towards him. They just stare at each other. "I don't know," he admits, finally. "I'm back for now."

CJ nods. "You coming to my briefings?"

He smirks. "I was looking forward to that, yeah."

Despite herself, she feels herself beam as she scoots closer into his arms. "Good." And whispers into his chest, where he surely can't hear it, "Because I kind of missed you."

And when she walks into the briefing room for the first time in the New Year, she finds herself scanning the crowd for him, and when he's there, needling her, smiling at her, eyes dancing, egging her on and flirting with her so blatantly it nearly makes her blush, she finds herself enjoying herself so thoroughly that, not for the first time, she finds herself forced to entertain the possibility that she might really be in love with this man.

_iii. gimme, gimme, gimme (a man after midnight)_

Jordan Elaine Kendall flicks off the television at exactly eleven-thirty, because she loves Jon Steward but can't stand Stephen Colbert, wanders out of her living room, because she was brought up that only slobs have a television in their bedroom and get to watch TV in bed, flicks off the lights in her kitchen and gets ready for bed. She takes her silky midnight-blue pajamas out from under the pillow where she placed them this morning, methologically replaces the pillow. In her bathroom, she carefully brushes her teeth, flosses, gives herself exactly three minutes to deal with her face, make-up remover, cold cream and all, because more time would just be an exercise in vanity, and finally, she slips under her covers.

There she lies, wide awake, heart pounding, mind reeling. The enormity of what she's learned to day, what she's decided -or really, been ordered- to do today, creeps in out of the shadows of her orderly bedroom. Sits on the side of her bed, and waits. She turns away, resolutely, towards the wall, and waits for sleep.

Sleep doesn't come. Instead, she becomes restless, agitated, because on top of everything else that she needs to consider- that must be considered, neatly sorted into pro/con piles in her mind- there's also the issue of Leo to be considered in this- Leo, who makes her feel like she's in her twenties again, and she know, she's been taught, that she's supposed to be beyond feeling like this, but when he smiles at her, tells her she looks sensational (his words!), she forgets that. She forgets a lot of things.

It's been too long since anyone has told her she looks sensational.

She crawls out of bed, unable to stand it under the covers, and walks towards the wide French windows overlooking her neat, manicured garden bathed in moonlight, thinking about Leo. He's the kind of man she thought they didn't make anymore. They've had dates, flirtations, one shy kiss shared on Christmas Eve on her doorstep, out of sentimentality more than anything else, and all of that just makes it all that harder to not give in to his advances completely and allow him to sweep her up, if only for a little while.

But the truth is, that when she thinks of Leo, what she thinks of is a force of nature. A heavy gust of wind blowing her well-ordered life out of shape, uprooting her and then, inevitably, dropping her in some unfamiliar territory where she'd be forced to fend for herself.

Jordan knows this. She's someone who has arranged herself with being alone very comfortably, she has a Weimeraner named Abigail, and the neighbors' kids to borrow whenever she feels the need for it. She's got girlfriends she goes on vacation with, she tutors kids in English and Social Studies at a Middle School in Douglass twice a week and goes to Yoga classes every Thursday morning. Yes, Jordan is the kind of person who as arranged herself very comfortably with being alone.

And she'll stay that way.

_iv voulez-vous_

She couldn't even tell you what it is she sees in him.

They meet in a bar, he sends a bottle of Veuve Cliqout over to her and her friends like it's a keg, and not much later, he's dancing with her, and she's having way to much fun to realize that this is not something she does, letting some stranger feel her up in a dingy club in Columbia Heights she's already forgotten the name of.

He texts her, they go out to dinner, and she's dazzled and somehow ends up at his place, and that's when things really start getting out of control because she'S the state of reckless drunkenness that only champagne can induce, but still she can think to herself that she doesn't do any of _this_, especially not on what's technically the first date. But it feels good, and he feels good, and so she goes without. But still, she really has yet to figure out what it is about him she likes, exactly.

Sure, he's rich and cute and lives in a castle, he's carefree and funny and his last name's even more impressive than hers, in a way, but that's not it. She _does_ realize he's a little ridiculous, with his accent (when she knows perfectly well he's been going to school in England since he was ten) and his polo and the incessant partying which quite frankly is starting to get on her nerves, because no matter how hard she tries to fight it, she's still her Dad's daughter and would rather spend the night with a big book than almost anything else.

And her friends kind of hate him, and she _knows_ her family hates him -she doesn't think Ellie's talked to her this much since she was twelve-, and it's not like she can blame them. There are times when she thinks to herself, _what the hell are you doing with this guy, he's basically Gaston from _Beauty and the Beast.

But he takes her to Paris and buys her things, things no-one else has ever even though of buying her, 300 dollar sunglasses and lingerie, and she's sold. It's kind of not-okay, she knows, and kind of not-her, or so she's told, but this is part of draw: he brings out a new part in her, someone who drinks cocktails, goes to fashion shows, goes shopping with her boyfriend's creditcard and gives said boyfriend a blowjob in an airplane bathroom, not caring just how bad it would be if word got out. She's always been the good kid, her father's little girl, the one who could do no wrong, and she's having way too much fun testing how much wrong she actually can get away with to stop it, now.

When she finds out what wrong actually looks like that April, it's too late for regrets.

v. SOS

They sit next to each other in an empty movie theatre save for Charlie a few seats over, and Will's having a hard time concentrating on _National Treasure: Book Of Secrets_. In the heady combination of Kate, next to him, smelling irresistably like herself and the sneaky feeling that he's about to lose her to his own stupidity, the exploits of the likes of Nicolas Cage are just not that interesting to him. An hour into the movie, he's eaten all his popcorn and come to the conclusion that he can't stand this any longer.

"Kate," he mutters. "Can you come with me for a sec?"

She stares at him, a _what the hell _expression on her face that reminds him so violently of a teenage girl that it'd be funny, if it weren't so endearing, so her, so one of the reasons he fell for her in the first case.

"I need to talk to you," he whispers. "It's kind of… urgent."

He shuffles out of the row, and, after a moment's hesitation, she follows him out into the deserted mid-day lobby of a DC multiplex.

"What the…"

"I'm not moving to Oregon," he blurts out. "I'm not doing it. I refuse to. I'm putting my line in the sand. I'm not moving to Oregon. I don't want to be a Congressman! I don't even like Congress!"

She's staring at him with a curious expression- almost pity. "Will, come on…"

"No," he interrupts, "no, now I get to talk. I've figured this out. You've been pushing me away, to freaking Oregon, for two weeks, but I've got your read now. You're just as freaked out by this as I am, and you're thinking to yourself, hey, if I get him to move away, I won't have to beak up with him, because cross-country relationships never last!"

"I-"

"I'm a good guy, Kate," he tells her, imploringly. "I'm not a marine, when the Airforce calls me in it's because they need a laywer, but I'm a good guy. I'm decent, and I'm kind, and I'd be nice to you, and we could really make this work, but only if you stop trying to push me to Oregon."

"Will-"

"It's not fair," he tells her, seriously, slowing down, breathing. This is the most honest thing he's said to a woman, ever. "I want us to work, and if you don't, you should at least have the courage to tell me that to my face."

Kate blushes, looks down. "I know," she whispers.

His heart sinks through his body, right down into the DC sewage. He stands their, frozen. "Oh."

"Will, no, I-"

"I get it." He heaves a sigh. "I guess I'm moving to Oregon after all." And he walks away.


	3. Part Three

Mamma Mia!

_i. does your mother know?_

"We _don't_ have a tension," Leo says exasperatedly the next morning over coffee and his schedule. "You're getting this wrong."

"If you say so, Boss," Annabeth says, sweetly, handing him page two of the schedule. She eyes him with an odd expression on her face -almost _wistful_, but no, that can't be right because she's getting this all wrong and they definitely don't have a "tension".

"I do say so," he tells her, emphatically.

"Leo, have you been losing sleep over this?" She asks him, studying him closely. "Because I need you to look camera ready, you're doing Hardball tonight."

"I haven't!" He retorts, scandalized. "You're twelve years old. That'd just be… "

"I'm actually twenty-eight," she says, smoothly, "and I'll have you know that these things do happen."

"Yeah, on page six, maybe," he grumbles, and leaves it at that. They finish their breakfast in silence, other than mild admonishing that he hasn't finished the fruit salad that she brought him, which he answers with a half-hearted "mind your own damn diet schedule, would you?", knowing too well that it's futile to argue with her over this. "After all," she told him a few days ago with that strange, sugary grin, "if you die, I'll be out of a job, and who else is gonna put up with me?"

Later, over lunch: "Just because we spend a lot time together, which, I'll have you know, you get paid for, that doesn't mean we-"

They're occupying an entire row of the Santos campaign plane, Annabeth's feet propped up on the empty seat next to her, with copious amounts of food -all her choice, and most of them healthy- and papers scattered between them. She smiles to herself as she slurps her smoothie, not taking her eyes off the feature in Newsweek about his presumable role in the administration she's been reading for the past half hour, making color-coded marks on a notepad balanced precariously on her knees, as she tells him: "Fine. We don't have a tension. Eat your salad."

"I will," he tells her, rolling eyes. "But drop the other thing, I beg of you."

Annabeth raises her eyebrows. "I dropped that last night- you're the one still harping on about-"

"I wasn't harping!" He exclaims, reaching for a packet of thousand-island dressing.

"Don't eat that," she says, still, infuriatingly, not even bothering looking up. "I got you joghurt-based fat-free Ranch Dressing. The others are for me."

He sighs, rolls his eyes, and puts the package down again. "I feel like I'm four. Which, by the way, is closer to your age than my actual-" He stops himself, sighs, and commences sifting through the clutter between them for his designated dressing.

_ii. the winner takes it all _

Margaret's been in his face about his damn divorce papers all night, and while he knows it's just her way of showing him that she cares about him, and he knows that that's kind of her and he should appreciate the fact that he's got people looking out for him like _that_, he'd rather not have to be explaining himself to Donna Moss, of all people. She's a good girl, and looking very pretty in that dress, but Leo just isn't in the mood for sympathy and concerned questions from everyone from the President down to Josh's assistant.

They all think he's going to drink, and while what he told Josh -_I'm an alcoholic, I don't need a reason to drin_k- is partly true, the greater point here is that he doesn't _want_ to drink.

It's got something to do with pride. He's not about to give her the satisfaction of knowing just how badly she crushed him, badly enough for him to risk everything -or what little of everything he has left now that he's signed those papers, anyway- and hurt himself more badly than she could have ever hurt him.

He's not gonna do it. He refuses to.

It's got something to with pride, with not throwing away that little that he has left of her. Distracted, snatches of memory, a young girl with reddish braids writing him long, chatty, overly-cheerful letters into the Vietnam jungle. A young woman, balancing their daughter on the kitchen counters of their new house in the suburbs, hugging him tight. It's a whole life of his that's gone, but still, Leo McGarry refuses to let treacherous booze get the rest of it.

It's got something to do with pride, with walking with his head held high and being able to live without his wife who has now, officially, legally, cut him out of her life, out of their life really. For that life will go on, summers at her brother's cabin on Lake Michigan, potlucks with the neighbors on the first Saturday of the month, skiing in sugarbush in winter, trips to Europe in the spring- it'll all still happen, because she likes routine and she'll want to keep it going, and it won't matter at all that he won't be with her anymore, because he hardly was before. Coming late and leaving, pressing a distracted kiss on her cheek and ruffling through Mallory's hair before looking for the nearest pay phone, or bar, or both.

She won't miss him. He never gave her much of a reason to.

_iii. when all is said and done_

"So," CJ exhaled quietly, placing a single sunflower on the yellowing patch of grass under a gleaming marble headstone.

Summer was ending, a summer that she'd spent holed up in the White House or on the campaign bus, because anywhere else would have inevitably reminded her of the fact that, if there were any justice in the world, she wouldn't be there alone. The Shakespeare Free For All in Rock Creek Park which she usually looked forward to all year, and Movies on the Mall- this year she skipped them, because going alone or with Sam or Donna would have felt so wrong, when really all she wanted was him there, teasing her about her inability to make a nice picnic, letting her snuggle against him as tragedy unfurled on stage and silver screen. She'd spent the Caribbean Carnival coming up with a spin master plan for the convention in her office, not holding hands with someone and strolling along Banneker Field, sampling jerk chicken and garlicky, deep-fried plantains. And while Abbey, Sam and Leo had been obsessively planning for Restaurant Week all summer, reading Zagat Guides and making schedules and wondering aloud if you could eat two full lunches and two full dinners in one day, she'd spent the week with Chinese Takeout, staring at a photograph and hating the unfairness of it all.

She gently arranged the sunflower to make it cover the particularly scorched patches of grass. She didn't mind going to cemeteries- she'd visited her mother's grave too often as a child and teenager, putting out new flowers, picking at weeds, just _being_ there, missing her, that it failed to make her queasy. Unlike so many people, she instead felt comforted, rather than saddened, by the rows and rows of white marble, the outlines of fellow visitors and mourners silhouetted against the sun setting into the Potomac.

"I'm sorry," she muttered now, playing with the yellow, hopeful patterns. "I'm so sorry we never got to really be an us." Bringing a rose had seemed inappropriate, since they'd only ever been and always would remain a possibility. Never roses.

"Charlie's gonna be Anthony's big brother," she whispered, tracing the S on the headstone with his index finger. "And I think he's gonna do a really good job with him. Not like you, but still- a really good job…" She broke off, rose to her feet. Eyed the headstone one last time.

"I miss you," she blurted out. "I know there's not much too miss because we never really knew each other, but I really miss you."

As she walks back to her car, a sudden gust of autumn wind enveloped her. It was getting cold. Summer was over.

_iv. take a chance on me_

"So what's this I hear about you moving to California?" She stands in his doorway with a bag full of some kind of food, and brave attempt at a smile on her face, but still, Sam's pretty sure that he's finally managed to make Ainsley Hays cry.

"How'd you find out?" He asks, because it's the first thing that comes to his mind, right after _What are you doing here_ and _I'm sorry_, and he's sick of apologizing for something he did weeks ago on a whim and that's now come to bite him so thoroughly in the ass.

"You're all over the news, you idiot," she chives, striding past him into his kitchen. "What did you think, they ignore all the races Democrats won on Fox?"

"Something like that, yeah," he answers, out of habit, a bit late to realizing that this is not at all the time for this. "Look, I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but I kind of didn't tell anyone about it."

She just raises her eyebrows.

"I didn't! I made a stupid promise to a stupid widow because I'm, well-"

"-stupid," she supplies. "I know." And with a sigh, she's crossed the room and is looking up at him, one hand reaching out to ruffle his hair in an affectionate sort of way that he doesn't think he's earned. "You look tired." She shakes her head. "When was the last time you slept?"

"Long time ago," he sighs, looking away. He doesn't really know why she's here, since she's past yelling at him, apparently, but he's not going to fight it, especially not when she stands on tip-toes and pulls him in the kind of hug that is exactly what he needs at this point.

They've never bothered to define what it is that they have, exactly, sniping at each other over policy and making out in the mess at eleven PM when they're the only ones left; eating obscene amounts of breakfast foods in her bed on Sunday morning, watching the Sunday shows together and yelling at the television and each other, doing the crossword puzzle. It got easier, or maybe harder, when she quit after they tried to make her Deputy over the open mike thing, they had to make time to see each other, consciously plan it. It was exciting at first, and then less so.

Now, it doesn't really matter, because he's leaving and she's pissed, and Sam knows how this ends. With him sitting alone in a new apartment in some new city, never bothering to unpack his plates and silverware because it's not like he'll ever eat there.

"So can I come?" She mutters into the crook of his neck, still hugging him, and her voice is muffled but she definitely said it.

"Can you come…?" He's not getting it.

"To California, you unbelievable moron."

Clearly, Sam doesn't know how this one ends yet.

_v. thank you for the music_

After the dedication, they sit together on the Bartlet's porch on a warm summer night, drinking cider and eating corn chips and cherries, reminiscing. Jokes that were funny ten years ago are retold, stories they'd all half-forgotten but would never dare totally forget are recounted, and over it all, Leo's absence sticks out like a sore thumb. Abbey shoos the President to bed at some point, but since everyone's staying at the farm anyway as per their request, they just bid him goodnight and stay where they are. Beer bottles clink, soft laughter rustles through the air. Arguing, laughter.

"Is it just me," Donna asks, balanced so precariously on the armrest of Josh's chair she might as well be sitting in his lap, one hand lost in his hair, "or is this a lot like a high school reunion?"

Everyone laughs. CJ mutters something about hopefully not having to give a speech about the promise of a generation, at which Danny shoots her a questioning look from over the top of their sleeping daughter's head. "I liked the people I went to high school with a lot less," Kate Harper shrugs, not meeting Will's eye.

"The people I went to high school with liked _me_ a lot less," Will responds, gravely, staring at her. Donna and CJ exchange an amused look.

"What makes you think we like you?" Toby asks, and it's a sticky moment because nobody can tell if he's kidding or not until CJ reaches out an arm and slaps him on his bald patch, breaking up the tension in raucous laughter.

"Look at them." Two stories above, Jed Bartlet is unable to sleep. Instead he's standing by the bedroom window, looking down at these people, who are his kids no matter how hard he tries to force himself not to think of them that way.

"Go to bed," Abbey calls from the bathroom.

"They'll be fine, right?" She walks up to him, wraps her arms around him and joins him as he looks down on the porch. CJ's throwing her hand's wide in conversation, Danny looking at her over the head of their sleeping daughter with open, honest love, just like he always did. Josh has his arms tightly around Donna, who's resting one hand on the very visible bump of her stomach, her eyes closed as she leans against her fiancé. Charlie and Zoey are one of the benches, Zoey's feet tucked under Charlie's legs, comfortable with each other; across from them, Will and Kate, a steaming pile of awkwardness begging to be resolved, while Toby sits on one of the deck chairs, smoking a cigar and looking grave, but not unhappy.

"Yes," Abbey assures, planting a kiss on his cheek, just because she can. "They'll be fine. You did good on them, jackass."


End file.
